


dreaming through the noise

by somehowunbroken



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Episode Tag, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-22
Updated: 2011-11-22
Packaged: 2017-10-26 10:49:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/282182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somehowunbroken/pseuds/somehowunbroken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The third time Steve wakes up to find Danny watching infomercials on the couch is when it clicks that something is probably wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	dreaming through the noise

**Author's Note:**

> This is a coda for 2x10, and as such, contains spoilers for that episode. Deals with PTSD; please consider your own self-care before reading.
> 
> There is violence described in here; I wouldn't call it extreme or terribly graphic, but it's in there, so please also take that into account.

The third time Steve wakes up to find Danny watching infomercials on the couch is when it clicks that something is probably wrong.

Danny isn’t unresponsive when Steve trudges down the stairs and sits beside him, but he’s clearly not watching what’s going on onscreen. It seems almost like he’s staring through the television – through the walls, maybe, out across the beach, his thoughts playing out above the water.

“Danny?”

Danny shifts and blinks a few times before turning. “Hey. Why’re you up?”

“Why are you?” Steve counters, sliding over a little until his thigh is pressed against Danny’s. “It’s half past three in the morning. You should be asleep.”

Danny shrugs. “Bad dream.”

“Oh.” Steve’s no stranger to those; he’s got plenty of bad experiences to draw upon, from age sixteen on. There are still marks on his stomach from his latest brush with the nightmare-inducing cruelty that the world sometimes likes to throw at him. “Want to talk about it?”

“No,” Danny says immediately. His hand clenches a little on his knee, and okay, Steve isn’t going to force him to talk, but he’s not going to let Danny sit alone and think about whatever’s on his mind, either.

“Okay,” he says after a moment, laying his hand on top of Danny’s and just letting it rest there. “So have I told you about the year we won States?”

“States?” Danny echoes, leaning slightly into Steve’s shoulder. “In what, football?”

“Baseball,” Steve corrects. “Little League. I was seven.”

Danny snorts as Steve launches into his tale, but he settles more fully into Steve, so Steve keeps talking and talking until Danny’s breathing is deep and even. Then he shakes out the blanket from the back of the couch, tosses it over their laps, and leans his head against the back of the couch.

-0-

Danny makes it through the night more nights than he doesn’t, but Steve isn’t counting that as a win, not really. If anything, whatever is in Danny’s dreams is getting worse; Steve is starting to recognize some of the infomercials.

“You’re going to have to talk about it eventually,” Steve says three weeks after first finding Danny on the couch in the middle of the night. His stomach is mostly healed, even if the marks are still visible. _They’ll fade with time_ , the doctor had said, _but they’ll probably never go away completely._

Steve’s not expecting them to. Taking a cattle prod to the stomach seems like the kind of thing that should leave its mark on you.

“I would really rather not talk about it,” Danny says. “Talking about it means I’m thinking about it, which is something I’m trying really hard not to do.”

“Danny,” Steve starts, and Danny turns to face Steve, eyes flashing.

“No, you know what? You want me to talk, fine,” he spits out. “I’m having nightmares, Steven, the kind that make me want to vomit. I go to sleep next to you, right, and you’re not fine but you’re healing, you’re alive, you’re gonna be okay. But I close my eyes-” Danny pulls in a sharp breath and lets his eyes fall closed. “I close my eves, and Jenna doesn’t call us. We never find out where you are, and you just don’t come home and there’s nothing I can do. Or we get there, and instead of finding Jenna on the floor in that room from hell, you’re chained up with a bullet in your gut. Or we find you in that convoy, but you’re not breathing, you’re sitting in a pool of your own blood, you’re staring at the wall because they couldn’t even be bothered to shut your eyes-”

Steve doesn’t say a word. He just wraps an arm around Danny’s shoulders and pulls him in, and Danny falls, still mumbling into Steve’s chest.

“You keep dying, and there’s nothing I can do to save you,” Danny says, quieter now. “You’re already dead, and I just keep finding you, over and over again.”

“And it’s easier to just stop sleeping than to deal with it,” Steve supplies. Danny tenses, but Steve doesn’t let go, doesn’t loosen his hold. He’s not sure how to bring up what he knows, how PTSD can affect you, take you over until it controls you. He doesn’t want that to happen to Danny, but he doesn’t want to drive Danny away by bringing it up, either. “Look, it might help if you talked to someone.”

Danny snorts into his shirt. “I’m talking to you.”

Steve sighs. “You know what I mean, Danny.” There’s silence from the vicinity of Steve’s chest, so Steve presses on. “You weren’t trained to handle the kind of thing you went into over there-”

“Don’t give me that shit,” Danny says, pulling back and glaring. “Don’t even try to tell me that you’re better equipped to handle this-”

“I still have nightmares, Danny, I’m not going to deny that, but I haven’t stopped sleeping,” Steve says evenly. “Trust me, I’ve had the thoughts that you’re having. I’ve had the nightmares. I’ve thought about what would have happened if even one little detail about your rescue mission was off, and yeah, it scares me, okay? But I know how to put it away, how to keep it from bothering me.” He reaches out and rests a hand on Danny’s thigh. “Not healthy, as you keep telling me, but it’s a coping mechanism.”

“I’m coping,” Danny says, but Steve shakes his head.

“Listening to someone desperately try to sell you a Magic Grater is not a coping mechanism,” he says, glancing at the screen. There’s a tiny smile on Danny’s face when Steve looks back. “There’s nothing I can do to force you to see anyone, Danny, and I wouldn’t even if I could – that’s something you have to decide to do for yourself. It’s my suggestion, and it’s one that I’m making based on having seen things like this before, okay?”

There’s a heavy sort of silence between them while the man on the television goes on, speaking at a hundred miles an hour about how his device slices and dices and shreds everything from cheese to apples to zucchini. Finally, Danny sighs and leans back into Steve.

“I’ll think about it,” he mutters, resting his head against Steve’s shoulder. “I’m not making you any promises, but I will consider what you’re saying, okay?”

“That’s all I’m asking,” Steve says quietly, settling his arms around Danny’s shoulders and flicking the television off with the remote. He leans down and pulls Danny with him, arranging them in a careful sort of sprawl across the couch, Steve on his back and Danny mostly across his chest. Danny’s head settles somewhere in the vicinity of Steve’s heart, and Steve thinks he’s probably listening, letting the steady thump-thump-thump of Steve’s heartbeat lull him to sleep.

Steve tosses an arm around Danny’s waist, closes his eyes, and hopes that neither of them dreams.


End file.
